Friday, September 16, 2016

Renaissance Newsletter #9

Shakespeare's
curse-protected grave gets radar survey

Documentary filmmakers have radar scanned William
Shakespeare's grave this year as Britain celebrates the 400th anniversary of
the Bard's death.

The grave in the Holy Trinity Church in Shakespeare's birthplace of Stratford
upon Avon is a place of pilgrimage for fans and has an inscription on it with a
curse against anyone planning to tamper with it.

"Bleste be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my
bones," the inscription reads.

The survey could help researchers learn more about Shakespeare's life and
family, helping to detect unmarked or previously unknown graves and items
buried within the coffins…

THE
FIRST FOUR FOLIOS OF SHAKESPEARE’S COLLECTED WORKS

LED
BY AN UNRECORDED FIRST FOLIO

Christie’s commemorates 400
years since the death of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) with a landmark sale
of the first four folios, the first four editions of his collected works. The
Folios will be offered in a four-lot auction celebrating the Shakespeare
anniversary in London on Wednesday 25 May 2016. The sale is led by an
unrecorded copy of the First Folio, the first collected edition of
Shakespeare’s plays, widely considered the most important literary publication
in the English language. The First Folio contains 36 plays, 18 of which had not
previously been printed and would have otherwise been lost forever (estimate:
£800,000-1.2 million, illustrated above). The plays of Shakespeare,
preserved for posterity in these volumes, define our knowledge of Shakespeare
the man, the playwright, the poet and the actor. The Four Folios will tour to
New York from 1 to 8 April and go on public display in London from 20 to 28
April to celebrate Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary on 23 April;
later being exhibited in the pre-sale view in May. The pre-sale exhibitions and
auction provide a unique opportunity to view the complete set of Folios and
experience first-hand the excitement arising from proximity to the earliest
editions of the greatest playwright in history. The sale is expected to realise
in excess of £1.3 million.

Margaret Ford,
International Head of Books & Manuscripts, says: “The universality and timelessness
of Shakespeare’s insight into human nature continues to engage and enthrall
audiences the world over. Even four centuries after his death, his plays touch
and transform lives and continue to be read and performed from Albania to
Zambia. It is deeply moving to handle the first printed record of his collected
plays and to be reminded of their tremendous impact. Especially exhilarating is
bringing a newly recorded copy of the First Folio to public attention, and to
be able to offer a set of the Four Folios in this important anniversary year.”

Published in 1623, the
present copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio is one of the most desirable examples
remaining in private hands. It was bought in 1800 by renowned book collector
Sir George Augustus Shuckburgh-Evelyn(1751-1804) and has been hidden from public view for over two centuries.
Even on publication in 1623, the First Folio was considered a privileged
acquisition and would have taken pride of place on any bookshelf. Similarly
today, ownership of the four Folios is considered the Holy Grail of book
collecting. Without the First Folio 18 plays would have been lost forever,
including: Macbeth, The Tempest, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for
Measure, A Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, All’s
Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Winter’s Tale, King John, Henry VI part I,
Henry VIII, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and
Cymbeline.

Also from the remarkable
Shuckburgh Collection and appearing on the market for the first time in over
two centuries are the Third Folio which was published in 1664 (estimate:
£300,000-400,000) and the Fourth Folio which was published in 1685 (estimate:
£15,000-20,000). The Third Folio includes Pericles for the first time
and is beautifully illustrated with Shakespeare’s iconic portrait by English
engraver Martin Droeshout. It is rarer than the Second Folio, due to copies
being lost in the Great Fire of London (2-5 September, 1666), and the present
copy is in very fine condition.

The First Folio was a
commercial success and was followed only nine years later by the Second Folio,
published in 1632 and providing a page-by-page reprint of the First. The
present copy of the Second Folio also contains the iconic portrait of
Shakespeare by Droeshout (estimate: £180,000-250,000). The Second Folio is
celebrated as containing the first appearance in print of John Milton, whose
epitaph on Shakespeare is included.

Science sheds new light on the life and
death of medieval king Erik

The saint's
legend speaks of a king who died a dramatic death in battle outside the church
in Uppsala, Sweden, where he had just celebrated mass. But what can modern
science tell us about his remains? A joint research project headed by Uppsala
University now reveals more of the health condition of Saint Erik, what he
looked like, where he lived and what the circumstances of his death were.

No
contemporary sources mention Erik Jedvardsson, the Swedish king who was later
sainted. The only account of his life is the saint's legend, in its preserved
form written in the 1290's. Such legends are often unreliable. The Erik legend
is, however, based on an older legend which has been lost, and this longer
legend may have been much older.

The preserved
legend says that Erik was chosen to be king, ruled fairly, was a devoted
Christian, led a crusade against Finland, and supported the Church. He was
killed in 1160, in his tenth year of rule, by a Danish claimant to the throne.
His remains have rested in a reliquary since 1257.

A thorough
analysis of the skeleton in the reliquary was conducted in 1946, but the
availability of new methods of analysis motivated a new examination in 2014. On
23 April 2014, the reliquary was opened at a ceremony in Uppsala Cathedral.
After this, researchers from several scientific disciplines set to work running
tests on the remains in an attempt to learn more about the medieval king. Now,
the first results of these examinations are made public.

\

The reliquary
contains 23 bones, seemingly from the same individual. They are also
accompanied by an unrelated shinbone. The radiocarbon values measured in the
bones are consistent with a death in 1160. The osteological analysis shows that
the bones belong to a man, 35-40 years old and 171 cm tall.

Examinations
of the bones using computer tomography at the University Hospital in Uppsala
found no discernible medical conditions. DXA- and pQCT measurements conducted
at the same hospital found that Erik did not suffer from osteoporosis, or
brittleness of the bones. Quite the opposite, as he had a bone density about 25
percent above that of the average young adult of today. King Erik was
well-nourished, powerfully built and lived a physically active life.

The isotope
analysis points to a diet rich in freshwater fish, which indicates that the
king obeyed the church rules on fasts, i.e. days or period when the consumption
of meat was forbidden. Stable isotopes also imply that he did not spend his
last decade in the expected Uppsala area but rather in the province of
Västergötland further south. These conclusions should however be considered
very preliminary, as there are as of yet very few other studies to compare the
isotope values to.

The opening of
the reliquary also saw DNA samples taken. It is hoped that these will produce
results that will shed new light on questions of genealogy. This analysis has
not yet been completed, and is expected to take another year. The researchers
can, however, reveal that the samples have yielded DNA information.

The cranium in
the reliquary is dented by one or two healed wounds that may have been due to
weapons. The legends say that Erik led a crusade against Finland, which is
thought to be a possible explanation of the injuries.

The saint's
legend says that in the king's final battle, the enemy swarmed him, and when he
fell to the ground they gave him wound after wound until he lay half dead. They
then taunted him and finally cut off his head. The remaining bones have at
least nine cuts inflicted in connection with death, seven of them on the legs.
No wounds have been found on the ribs or the remaining arm bone, which probably
means that the king wore a hauberk but had less protected legs. Both shin bones
have cuts inflicted from the direction of the feet, indicating that the victim
lay on his front.

A neck vertebra
has been cut through, which could not have been done without removing the
hauberk, i.e. not during battle. This confirms that there was an interlude, as
described by the taunting in the legend, between battle and decapitation. At no
point do the documented wounds gainsay the account of the fight given by the
much later legend.

Archaeology, Death and Burial, Post-medieval
Europe

Historical
burial grounds are an enormous archaeological resource and have the potential
to inform studies not only of demography or the history of disease and
mortality, but also histories of the body, of religious and other beliefs about
death, of changing social relationships, values and aspirations.In the last
decades, the intensive urban development and a widespread legal requirement to
undertake archaeological excavation of historical sites has led to a massive
increase in the number of post-medieval graveyards and burial places that have
been subjected to archaeological investigation. The archaeology of the more
recent periods, which are comparatively well documented, is no less interesting
and important an area of study than prehistoric periods.This volume
(free: http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/458680?format=EBOK) offers a range
of case studies and reflections on aspects of death and burial in post-medieval
Europe. Looking at burial goods, the spatial aspects of cemetery organisation
and the way that the living interact with the dead, contributors who have worked
on sites from Central, North and West Europe present some of their evidence and
ideas. The coherence of the volume is maintained by a substantial integrative
introduction by the editor, Professor Sarah Tarlow.